


The Settling of Smoke and Forgotten Dreams

by Midnight Wolf (Larkawolfgirl)



Series: Works I am Particularly Proud of [16]
Category: American McGee's Alice
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 03:57:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6454759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larkawolfgirl/pseuds/Midnight%20Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She holds no memories of an ever-grinning cat whose bones were so taut they nearly stabbed through his skin at each juncture and whose riddles, though underappreciated at the time, had gotten her through many a trial. She may not remember, but said cat could never forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Settling of Smoke and Forgotten Dreams

Wonderland is no more, long since returned to smoke and dreams. Alice, now a fetching woman who has worked to make a place for herself in the world, has since forgotten that sanctuary of old, it being nothing now besides wisps of suppressed memories from her youth. Her only recollections are the strange and twisted dreams she sometimes has at night; dreams in which she is a noble fighter of justice, flying on shoots of air and swimming through seas of talking turtles. She holds no memories of an ever-grinning cat whose bones were so taut they nearly stabbed through his skin at each juncture and whose riddles, though underappreciated at the time, had gotten her through many a trial. She may not remember, but said cat could never forget.

Alice is means of life to him, his only source of life energy. She, the goddess who bore him into existence, holds onto him with an invisible string whether she realizes it or not.

It had not been difficult for the cat to travel through the rabbit hole when Alice left that final time, he did have experience making the trip after all. London is not a world he is accustomed to, what with gravity, condensed populations, and the pound, but every second spent in this wretched excuse for a world is made worth it for the vitality he gains by being near his Alice.

At first he’d had to settle for only being near her—sleeping near the windowsills, stalking her down the back alleys—but after Dinah died, Alice had finally given in to the cat she found lurking behind every corner, and he could finally find peace in her waiting arms. It was a grand opportunity considering how the girl had tried so hard to show her displeasure with him in the days of old. Mangy Cat, she used to call him, and sometimes in the dead of night, when the floorboards creaked from phantom footsteps, he would yearn to hear that name again, but never long, for now he gets to hear her call him a wonderful, good kitty as she pets behind his ears. It was a feeling he’d never felt before, and he purrs with abandonment. In these moments even he forgets Wonderland, too overtaken by the bliss of this new life together.

He is different now, of course. He can no longer grin that toothy grin or speak mind-churning riddles, but his tail can still wag back and forth in satisfaction and his eyes can still follow his Alice with acute precision. She is different as well. No longer is she painted in the red hue of anger and blood but with a crimson of determination and triumph. No longer does she swing a vorpal blade with cool precision or smile with madness, but she still has that faraway look in her eyes and her voice when she sings is still a coarse and throaty sound that makes his tail tingle in delight. These are the ways they spend their time, curled up together, throat rasping away with words that make little sense, tail swishing back and forth as if to keep tempo, gazes searching for something just beyond themselves that will never again be found.


End file.
